New beginnings for India-China to avoid Doklam-like incidents

Brainstorming for more than two hours on Thursday, India and China finally decided to work on defence cooperation and intensifying military interactions instead of face-offs to avoid Doklam-like situations in future and kick-start a new peaceful beginning for India-China.

Post Doklam, both India and China have been relentlessly trying to resolve the military tension between the Indian Army and the PLA Army. With the same purpose in view, a bilateral consultation was held between Indian Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and visiting Chinese State Councillor and Defence Minister General Wei Fenghe on Thursday. After a two-hour-long meeting, both India and China agreed upon the need of full implementation of ongoing confidence-building measures (CBM) and defence cooperation between armies of both nations to avoid standoffs in future.

During the meeting, both India and China also agreed to reduce the military confrontations on unresolved territories and increase the number of interactions between troops of both countries via CBMs, adding extra border personnel meeting points and promoting top-level communication through improved hotlines between both armies. Besides interaction, the Indian and Chinese army will engage in trainings and joint exercises after new MoUs will be drafted and signed by both India-China.

Alongside the pink talks, India kept stressing about how the CPEC, China’s progression in Pakistan’s Gwador port and the People’s Liberation Army presence in PoK remains to be a big concern. While China continued to stonewall India’s objections and concerns by saying that their presence and development in the region is not in the interest of harming India’s sovereignty in the border areas. Sitharaman and Fenghe might shake hands, but the passive game is still on at the borders and nobody wants to talk about it.